She Never Grew Up
by KillerMuffinish
Summary: Phoebe never wanted to grow up. She never wanted to learn that the cat couldn't understand her; she never wanted to learn the word "impossible". In her world everything was possible… she was just an innocent child. – A small oneshot featuring Phoebe as a child, a bit of established Joey/Phoebe in the end.


**A/N: Sooeh, this is pretty deep, if I shall say so myself. It's a short oneshot about Phoebe as a child. She's always been child-like but I tried to imagine her more even more child-like than she is as an adult. Tell me what you think, please. **

Phoebe had always been different from the other child's in her age; to them, she was strange, an outcast. They never really understood her and even though Phoebe's mother begged for them to be nice to her child she didn't even understand Phoebe herself – and sometimes she didn't even try to understand.

Phoebe wasn't bothered though. She didn't like the other kids company. They were small-minded and boring. They all told her to grow up and stop being such a child, which was stupid because that was exactly what she was supposed to be.

Phoebe was indeed an outcast; she was like a purple color pencil in a jaw filled with black pens.

The little blond girl had somehow snuck her way out of the house and into the small forest. She didn't like being home very much; her sister, Ursula, always got all the attention – Ursula was the pretty one – her father had left her mother and her mother was now seeing this new guy. Phoebe didn't like him very much and even though she considered him a stepfather she still had this feeling that he could end up in jail any minute.

Yeah, home was defiantly not her favorite place on earth, but she loved the forest. There were never many people, perhaps because the tall lanky trees appeared gloomy and blocked out the sun. Phoebe liked the forest, though, maybe because it couldn't talk, couldn't whisper mean thing behind her back, just loud enough for her to hear. It was totally silent and she liked that; it gave her time to think.

Phoebe never even wondered why the forest was so silent. She never wondered about anything; she was still in that age where everything seemed natural and nothing needed an explanation to why things were the way they were. They just were and that was it. She also thought everything was possible. She hadn't learned the word "impossible" yet… and Phoebe never wanted to learn that particular word; she never wanted learn that the cat couldn't possibly understand her and that her invisible friend Gladys, who lived in a painting, didn't really exist because… where would she be without something to believe in? Phoebe would be scared to death if she suddenly lived in a world where things couldn't just be the way she wanted them to be.

Phoebe jumped. A joyful jump that lead her into a small area of light; the sun flickered through the treetops and Phoebe felt as if she suddenly walked into a huge cathedral. The grass was high; untouched by human hands that wanted to cut the grass till it had the shape they wanted; plane straight lines. Phoebe always liked it better when the grass was untamed, when nature was allowed to grow the way it was supposed to. Why use violence to kill the life when freedom was so much more beautiful?

Phoebe had in earlier life discovered that adults loved to put things in boxes; the cat was a cat and cats can't talk. Adults didn't thought about the diversity of cats. There was not this cat and another cat; a cat was a cat. Capish. If an adult suddenly heard a cat talk he would quickly come to the conclusion that it couldn't be a cat, it had to be something else because cats can't talk.

It was the same with Phoebe; she was a human and that was all. According the adults rules she wouldn't be able to jump throughout the knee-high wet grass without touching a thing, without getting wet. It would be an so-called "impossibility". But Phoebe wasn't an adult and if she believed she could do something, well, then she could do it. No rules, no putting everything into boxes. In her world "impossibilities" did not exist and they never would.

She stayed in the forest for hours, just lay there in the grass, thinking about things and when she finally got home that night her head was filled with new possibilities, new things she had to try…

Phoebe woke up with tears in her eyes. She blinked in surprise and wiped them away with her ring-covered hand. She must have forgotten to take the rings of as she and Joey hurried to bed that evening. The fake red and green diamonds sparkled in the moonlight that shone in trough the bedroom curtains. It was beautiful and Phoebe just sat there and looked at it for a while.

By her side Joey lay; he snored a bit but Phoebe had gotten so use to it by now that it didn't bother her anymore. She loved Joey more than anything. He was somewhat more like her than her other friends. Phoebe didn't think of Joey or herself as stupid, just… different and that was what made them so good together. They had the ability to believe in things, things that weren't naturally possible.

Of course Phoebe knew that not everything was possible. She was completely aware that some things just couldn't happen and she had accepted that. But… she couldn't understand those people who refused to believe in anything, people like Ross that had to have a reason for everything.

Eventually she had grown up and realized that her fantasy friend only existed in her head. The cat really couldn't talk her language – it could still meow and that meant something too, she was sure – and she understood that not everything worked the way she wanted it to. But sometimes she still missed that little girl, that innocent child, who believed in a world where the word "impossible" did not exist.

Phoebe lay down in the bed again with a smile. She found Joey's hand under the sheets and squeezed it slightly. She remembered the nursery rhyme Ursula had told her when they were both children. She whispered the words to herself before falling asleep.

"_There was a crooked man who had a crooked smile; he lived in a shoe…but only for a little while."_


End file.
